“Yes. Life always takes the side of life, and somehow the victims are blamed. But it wasn’t the BEST people who survived nor did the best one die. It was RANDOM!” By Pavel (Maus II)
What do you makes a person survive or succeed in life? Is It luck or skills/qualities? If a person has skills to do something incredible do you think he will succeed without luck or vice versa?
Well, to tackle these questions, we can also connect it to the SAT where luck and skills are needed. For example, you have enough skills to receive an average score but with luck, there may be a high curve, your score can be bumped up to the higher score. Even in the Olympics, many players lose the game with a single point but the other player/team with similar skills will win with a point which can all be linked with luck. But, I do not completely agree that luck is solely the only reason for success.
For instance, we can think about life-death situations or needy situations. Vladek displays a great example of a person who applies his skills along with some luck to survive the holocaust. Some luck involved like the number in his arm and the parshas truma. But, his knowledge of making shoes, working as a tinman, knowing many languages also did help him survive some obstacles during the Holocaust. But I also do not think that having many skills will make someone successful.
I think that both are needed but it depends on the situation. For example, when we take a test, the short answers deal with skills to write the right answer and when it comes to multiple-choice, I think that sometimes unknown questions can be guessed, and it is left to luck to make it the right answer. Together with luck and skills we can “survive” the test successfully.
